


wishes don't do shit baby (got all I want right here)

by Evelyn_fireheart



Series: when you glance back and see [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Peter Parker, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Language, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, SO, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, but not that bad cause i love my babies too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-19 02:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22003840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evelyn_fireheart/pseuds/Evelyn_fireheart
Summary: Harley Keener is a mix of depression, sexual frustration and a big bottle of Gay (TM). It's not really his fault- at least not fully. Falling in love with your best friend does that to a man sometimes.Peter Parker, on the other hand, is a chaotic mix of dumbassery, obliviousness and being the hottest guy in school (see above: falling in love with your best friend), so honestly his life is going fairly okay for once. Except for the whole thing of dying by the Grape's mass-murdering hands, then almost dying to save the world, and then actually dying to save the universe, and then falling in love with his best friend thing. Except for that, his life was just dandy.Then he did the dumbest thing yet (for full understanding of past dumbassery, see: falling in love with his best friend), and went and told Tony Stark about it.Who, of course, couldn't help but fuck it up. Big time.
Relationships: Harley Keener & Peter Parker, Harley Keener & Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Harley Keener/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: when you glance back and see [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1494989
Comments: 9
Kudos: 78





	wishes don't do shit baby (got all I want right here)

Harley Keener was a calm, even tempered man. 

He was 17 going on 22 now, if you counted the Blip, and for all that the adults in his life liked to call him a kid, he hadn't been one since his dad walked out the door and the responsibility of caring for a family settled on his shoulders. Children don't survive that. They either wither away beneath the pressure of it, or they survive, and come out different. 

And he may be 17 by the government's standards but he certainly feels as broken as any adult that had been murdered and then resurrected by Thanos' genocide, same as any other child -5 or 12 or 17- does. What that bastard did to the world would live on for generations, in scars that those who were not dusted would _never_ see. _(Harley was a simple man who knew the changes time brought, but those that had lived those long five years had become blind. He had no empathy for that, not when he had watched himself disintegrate what had felt like little more than a month ago.)_

Across the world there are people 5 years older than they look, people who returned from death to find their home had been given away, or destroyed, and their lovers and partners with someone else. There are children who returned to parents that did not want them, choosing their new lives over one filled with regret and pain. Some never returned.

Children have always been easy to loose, even more so in the fear and chaos of the Return. 

And yet none of these people are children because there is agony in their hearts and resilience in their bones and in every city, every town, there are people who stomp and scream and beg for anything the powers that be would give, who plead on their knees for a scrap of help in a harsh world. None of these people are children, and neither is Harley, because he knows death like an old friend and that's not something children do. 

To kids, death is a mysterious ending to a story, a far away conclusion to a tale that never existed in their real lives and never will. But to half of the world- half of the goddamn universe- death is a long awaited destination that they had been taken from, to return again one day. Somewhere between childhood and whatever _this_ is, death ends its tirade as an enemy and becomes a figment of the shadows, a hand to hold when the time finally came.

Harley is as grown up as he ever will be; there's no doubt about that from his peers nor him nor Peter. Some of the teachers understand, some don't. If it wasn't them then it was their parent or child, sibling or friend, so they pretend they do. Tony is another matter, of course. Tony looks at him and sees a young boy barely past the age of nine, who told his hero that he was ten because he was naïve enough to think a year made a difference, that age meant understanding and maturity. He sees a child with bright gold shoulder length hair- not the shorter, dirty blonde look Harley favours now. His hair is shorn on the sides and a mess on top, uneven in a way that suits him perfectly, and none of it is as it was before.

Before is an uncertain term, but it is also unnecessary. It could mean before he fell in love with the man that tried to sacrifice himself for the world, the man who loved so hard he burned with it and who could never love him in return. He fell in love with a masterpiece of human emotion, and existence, an ethereal being made of stinging anger and power and a remarkable compassion that he had never seen before, and would never see again. Harley had never been so grateful and felt so lucky for something as he did for having Peter in his life, just as he had never hated something so much as loving him.

It was perhaps the greatest mistake and triumph of his life, and so the unending meaning of _before_ could be this, or it could mean before the Blip. If he's being honest with himself (and he not often is) it could even mean before Tony crashed into his life and raised his expectations for existence while simultaneously destroying every one with how far he went beneath them in the aftermath. It could mean before his mum got sick and stopped getting out of bed, or it could be before his dad left. 

He has a younger sister that's older than him, now, and every time he looks at her in sends something like agony through him, sharp and precise as a javelin, and he knows that sometimes when he wishes to be before, he means before her. Before she came out in a rural, homophobic town while Harley was dead in the wind; Harley, who had done the same years before and felt each whiplash of their words and known he would do anything to stop them hurting Abby. Harley, who could have helped.

On the days where he is less kind, less merciful and forgiving, he aches for the before of when he was an only child.

This is why he cut his hair short, of course. To separate himself from the guilt these wishes bring and the inevitable truth of them, no matter the effects of the Blip on him. (A child needs someone to blame when their dad doesn't come home, and he had chosen his sister. She could barely toddle, and she was already the figurehead of a resentment deep and entrenched enough to last a lifetime.)

It's more than a little annoying that Tony does not see this, but not once is it surprising. For all his claims of being a futurist and a genius, he is terribly blind when he wants to be. Harley suspects that Tony Stark wants to see Harley just as much as Harley wants to see Peter right now -just with different motivations and reasons. That is to say, he will allow himself look, and even hear, but not to understand. 

Harley and Tony are very similar men, almost too similar, and he knows why. He suspects that -as it is with Peter for him- it would hurt too much. Tony's an old man, now. If not in age and body, then certainly in mind and soul. He knows the rhytms of war and pain as well as he knows the faces of his children and Pepper's touch, and Harley does not blame him for wishing to protect himself from one more battle wound.

At least, not much.

_(Harley is similar enough to Peter to love him, after all, and not in the ways of MJ and Ned, and certainly not in the way of May and Tony. MJ loves him for his quick wit and the way he defends people regardless of any factor other than their intentions. Ned loves him for his easy going nature, and the way he smiles when they talk about Star Wars. He loves him as surely as he loves his own soul, as easily as one side of a coin would support the other._

_M_ _ay and Tony love him for the way he is their child, the way he laughs at bad jokes and dances in the kitchen and curls up in their arms when he's ill. They love him as parents, and so their love is a blanket of everything -everything and anything._

_Harley loves him for every single thing they love him for, every single thing he does, and everything he doesn't do. He loves him for the way he had grinned when they first met, wide and open and beautiful, as well as the way he clutched onto Harley with quivering arms the first time Harley saw him have a panic attack. He loves him for every flip and twist and life-saving manoeuvre he does as Spider-Man, and for every terrifying time Harley looks up to see Peter pacing across the ceilings. He loves him for every kind word, every soft touch, every grin and tear and laugh, and is grateful to the moon and stars above for each second he gets with him smiling, joyful as he deserves to be._

_But they are also similar, and he loves Peter for these too. The smiles sharp with feral, half-wild anger that show too much teeth and too much soul-shredding anguish. The way he smashes through windows sometimes, torn and bruised and bleeding but laughing all the same, and how sometimes he doesn't come back after a mission. There are things he doesn't talk about and things he can't, events that have left gaping holes in Peter that may never go away, and Harley knows that when he holds Peter in his arms, he is holding a man who could crush a car, a building, let alone a fragile human. He loves him for this, too._

_He knows its stupid. Irresponsible, even. But he loves every part of his impossible man, every part of his fascinating structure and life, and he knows he may wish for many things, but he would never risk wishing on him. His spiteful, destructive lover, who may never love him back.)_

He may be spiteful, and stupid, but Harley doesn't bring it up, mainly because most of the time Tony isn't paying as much attention as he probably should (as much as part of Harley that had been devastated ~~ten~~ fifteen years ago aches for) to even notice that something's wrong, and because when Tony looks at him at least he feels visible. He hadn't felt visible in a long, long time.

It's not something he's been given much before and certainly not something he's going to risk losing. Even if it is a ridiculously low bar to set, and Tony barely crosses it on a good day.

Besides, aside from the fact that one of his most treasured people in the world hasn't noticed his hair cut, muscle gain, or declining mental health, his life is going relatively well. Then again, that is in contrast to being dead for 5 years and trying to get through high school while supporting his mother and sister by working three jobs before that so perhaps he doesn't have the best judgement when it comes to life quality.

All in all though, his life does seem to be fairly okay.

This is perhaps why waking up nuzzled into Peter Parker's chest, with strong arms wrapped around him and his head tucked beneath the still sleeping Peter's chin was like a blast of cold water to his already fairly waterlogged mind. Something about a metaphor for a drowning mental state, being irrevocably in love with a self-sacrificial lamb with the body of a god, laying on top of that same god- _Fuck_. He jerked up, "Fuck-"

He's so glad that his therapist taught him how to verbalise his feelings so well before he betrayed him to the press.

"Harley?" Peter's eyes shot open, scanning the room for danger as his grip on Harley tightened, "Whats wrong? Whats happening?"  
Harley felt himself flush. Come on. He had just been thinking about his new-found adulthood after the slaughter of trillions, and Peter had to throw it away just like that?

Unfair. Not to mention how it was quite typical of him to ruin his brooding; Harley thought that, deep beneath his love and adoration, he truly might hate Peter Parker. The man truly made him feel sick, with his distracting words and sinfully-constructed face and the way his eyes glinted when Harley issued a challenge, constantly making him wonder if the man would grin like that -all fierce and destructive and savage beauty- if Harley ever got the chance to kiss him with all the desire burning him up inside.

If he did, it might very well destroy Harley where he stands. Sigh. It would have to wait until Peter pulled his head out of his ass and realised Harley was already in love with him.

And yet, though he knew this wasn't the right time for a dramatic reveal, not even his infamous self-control could stop the warmth from spreading when Peter looked like this.  
With his jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed in alertness, he looked nothing like the Peter Tony and May saw. That Peter was kind and gentle, all soft jumpers and trailing, too-long jeans. Peter was the stuff of sunshine, with long lasting smiles and an intelligence that ran just below the surface -not threatening, but soothing. Like a dip into a cool steam on a hot day.

This was not that Peter. This was the man who put on a suit made of nothing more than glorified spandex and called himself Spider-man. This was a warrior, a man born of grit and hellfire and a refusal to back down. This is the result of a teen who walked into a site for human experimentation and walked out head held high, blood singing in his veins and immortality lacing his bones.  
The arms wrapped around Harley weren't human -not really- and they were tensing with the truth of that. These were arms that had held up buildings, arms that had crushed bones and shattered people and swung away unscathed. God, Harley loved him.

He spluttered, feeling the warmth spread to his chest as Peters breath dusted over the crown of his head. Peter was beautiful; always had been. His face was still soft with youth, skin clear and tanned from his almost monthly trips to the beach with his friends, but Harley could see the markings of a man in him, despite his supposed status as a teenager. It was truly unfair, really, how attractive Peter was becoming as he grew older. His bone structure was becoming more pronounced as he lost his teenage baby fat, and it resulted in a strong jawline, cheekbones you could cut yourself on, and a whole lot of sexy that made Harley want to get on his knees and beg for forgiveness. 

Peter's eyes had always been dark -darker than May's, whose eyes were hazel and bright with joy. Darker than Tony's, whose irises were a deep, clear brown, and yet always visible. _(Tony was one of the best liars Harley had ever known, and it was because he lied with his entire being. Every twitch of his lips and gesture of his arms could be used to lie, if the genius wanted to, but his best weapon was the way he'd lie with his eyes. For this, they always had to be seen.)_ Peter's eyes were brown too but they were shadowed, overhung by the weight and pain of his past. Sometimes Harley looked into the eyes of the man he loved more than anything else, and he saw nothing but night in their depths.

There is no true innocence left in Peter Parker. There is no part of him that doesn't cast a shadow when cast in the bright light of dawn. A person's trauma is reflected in their eyes, and with the life he'd lived Peter's could be nothing other than what they were. Beautiful, endlessly unfathomable, but so, so sad. Still, Harley loves him. When Peter Parker smiles there are stars in his eyes, hanging like silver apples from bare trees, and if he didn't love him then there would have to be a great and terrible reason for it, because there is no greater glory than there is in the nebulae that is Peter.

So Peter was beautiful, in a sinful kind of way. He's was power itself- chaos and strength and revolution forced into one body- and at times like these, Harley could see the tremors that caused in him. Could feel them, too. To put those two things- those two beings together was painful. Was even worse than sin itself, somehow. A personal one way trip to Hell for a man with a penchant for chaos. Harley wondered if Satan would welcome him at the front gates, maybe even glance upon him with pity.

Or maybe he wouldn't be sent to Hell at all. After all, there had never been a choice in falling in love with Peter Parker, no free will involved. Harley thinks it would make little difference if he had told Father Michael. Love is sin if it's gay, and all that crap.  
He almost scoffs at the thought. It's doubtful that anyone could look upon Peter Parker and not love him.

He had admired him at first sight, had been infatuated from the first time he heard him talk- well, ramble actually. But being in love had come later. Harley didn't really know when. He just remembers seeing him one day and thinking _I love you as the comets love the solar wind that drives them, as the twilight loves the dawn, and I will love you until this world is nothing more than dust and memories, until the stars die with no one to hear their last breath, and past that._ Then Peter had tripped over a cable in the lab and the thought was gone, replaced by Harley's breathless laugh and instinctive teasing, leaving nothing more than the feeling of something eternal and impossible, living in his chest and pulsing in his very flesh and bones as surely as his heartbeat did.

And he remembers looking at Peter after that first revelation, watching him existing so beautifully, so fearful and protective and looking something like a deity made flesh, and he knowing he couldn't doubt it. Perhaps there was a universe where he didn't love Peter Parker, but he sure as hell knew it wasn't this one.

The thought was damning, piercing. Worst of all things, he knew the thought was true.

He could never bring himself to be angry about it though. Not even that first time of knowing it, despite his boyfriend and mother and unstable life. He couldn't even drag up any honest irritation. (Though he had forced some annoyance to spread across his features, let it coat his lips in a mocking smile even as his heart ached fiercely.)

All of this swirls in his mind with the capacity to break him and honestly- there's no reason why it never does. Beside the inevitability of it, of course. Harley is in love with Peter. It's an end, and it's a beginning, and it's a thousand other things, but above all else, it's unchangeable. If he's lucky it may fade one day, might wear away with the licking waves of time until his love for Peter lays in little more than sand on the ocean floor. Ever present and immortal in the way all forgotten things are but lesser, somehow.  
It would be simpler.

More merciful.

But he was warned about this, was told by those who walked these same steps that there is no escaping this- not with your life intact.

MJ herself had told him. MJ, with her immovable countenance and prickly façade, had told him about the boy who loves like it's a gift to be able to do so, who will worm into your life and take root until every part of your life comes with a flowering, joyful part of him attached. Her voice had been soft and warm the way it was only with Peter, but her expression was hard. It was a warning in more ways than one.

_(MJ knew what it was to be in love with Peter, and be adored by him in the way of lovers. She had torn herself from him, and she knew the scars it had left as well as she had once known Peter's face. Those wounds had bled for months. Sometimes, when she looked to a place in herself where he used to live, there would be an ache that no amount of screaming could stop, and the blood would return as if it had never left.)_

She teaches him through soft tones and hard words just how much it would hurt. He knows there may be no returning from that, because while Peter wouldn't know he would see, because he may be oblivious but he's also a fucking genius and because his brain isn't just for show. And then Tony would see the difference, but here's where the story changes because while he's Peter's father in all but blood, there's no obliviousness shared between them.

Tony always knew them. He knows their pasts and their lives and their personalities and he's a futurist. He's the futurist; if there's anything Tony knows, it's possibilities. Possibilities, and the impossibility of not loving Peter Parker. It's different in a multitude of different ways, because Harley sees _beautiful and gorgeous and Lord, please forgive me,_ and Tony sees _kiddo_ , but it's all Peter so it's also the same in a cruel, divine way.

Tony would know that the cynical realist had fallen for the dreamer, for all that the dreamer was the one rising into the sky. Tony would know if Harley were to shatter when he tried to pull away from Peter. (Tony Stark doesn't see Harley because he's scared, and because it is too much like looking into a mirror. But Peter is clean and safe from Tony's taint, and so it is forgivable to look at him and see a son, and to let himself feel his fear.)

The choice before him wasn't kind, wasn't one that Peter would put before him if he could see it, but it's a choice nonetheless, so Harley takes the route that hopefully won't destroy him. He chooses lies. Lies and silence where it matters and unrequited love where it doesn't.

"Uh," Harley's brain is still short circuiting, forever fixed on the point where he realised he was laying on top of the man he was in love with. "Um. I fell asleep wi-on you."  
Saying with feels too close to a wish, and Peter is not the kind of star one wishes on.  
Luckily it's Peter he's in love with, so his mistake goes unnoticed.

Instead of jumping up and dislodging Harley's head from his muscular chest (that Harley really quite wanted to touch, thank you very much because- well, see above: Peter is a fucking _god_ ), Peter blinks, confusion and tension fading away into embarrassment. Embarrassment that -of course it does because no one ever cuts Harley any slack- paints his cheeks a dusty pink, before dancing down his neck and ears in a fiery blush.

Harley restrains a groan, body shifting slightly as he fights the urge to bite his fist. Or his lip. Or Peter's lips, actually perhaps just anywhere on Peter's entire fucking body-  
He shakes his head slightly, furiously forcing those thoughts away with a sharp dose of healthy common sense.  
 _No_ , he argues to the budding warmth in his cheeks, abdomen and-Harley's likely bright fucking red by now, just a fucking fire truck, Jesus Christ - his dick.  
 _I do not need to know if he flushes all the way to his cock- he is a straight man who's just extremely tactile due to a traumatic childhood and amazing parenting on behalf of his aunt after said traumatic childhood when his parents were killed. That's all. No reason for excitement._

"Oh," Peter says. His mouth has dropped open in that way of his that's positively sinful though, so Harley's distracted from teasing him about his sudden loss of witty comebacks. (If he had been looking, maybe Harley would've seen the way Peter was looking back. Maybe he even would've noticed the way Peter's heartbeat picked up beneath his hand. Then again, the love in the wide-eyed stare may have short circuited the young man's heart this time, rather than his ability for higher brain function.)

"Um. What time is it?" Peter asks, voice gruff in a tone that vibrates through Harley's entire bloody body. Fuck. It's rare that Harley gets to hear Peter like this. This is the voice of mornings, which had always rung too close to impossible morning-afters for his fragile heart. The knowledge that this is Spider-man under him, that all these sharp lines and unforgiving muscles belong to a superhero, almost goes straight to his dick. Then he remembers that he is in fact, on top of Peter, and that every line of Harley's body is pressed into his. (This doesn't change anything. Peter is Spiderman and Spider-man is Peter and either one could get him hard as a fucking board with nothing but that raw, just-had-sex voice. Ergo, it goes straight to his dick anyway, and Harley is suddenly very worried about the way there is zero space between them. Zero. Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

Quite a problem, if he did say so himself.)

Harley's answer becomes little more than a squeak. He clears his throat and tries again.

"I don't know," he says, voice too low and shaky even to his own ears, "FRIDAY?"

"It is currently 8:37 am, Mr Keener." Harley's glad she doesn't remark on how he his voice was just a shade away from pleading. He's also glad she doesn't show that snark that Tony had coded her with, the sarcastic drawl that mocks even as it soothes. It's probably because Peter's here. Tony's softer when Peters around- only stands to reason that his creations would be too.

When Peter speaks up, Harley's almost surprised. Harley doesn't know why, but he almost expected Peter to remain silent under the morning light, now that the perceived danger has gone. "Who else is awake, FRI?" His voice is cleaner, less rugged and more suitable to a sleepy teenager rather than the 21 year old he sometimes looks like, when the weight of those 5 years drags too much. He's Peter again. (Harley feels almost shameful for missing that rougher, deadlier part of him.  
He doesn't though because that part of Peter is the part that flips and glides and pins and -though he'll gladly saunter down to hell before he admits it- it makes his mouth water; he knows he loves it.)

"Boss is asleep at the moment in his private quarters, Colonel Rhodes is awake and in our personal gym on Level 214, while Miss Potts is currently on her flight to Japan to meet with the Tokyo Stark Industries branch. Is there anything else you'd like to know, Peter?"  
Just as he knew there would be, there's a fondness in FRIDAY's tone that he's sure even Tony couldn't code. FRIDAY developed it herself. All of it for Peter, and to make him feel more comfortable.

"Morgan?" Peter asks, eyes closing in a long blink. He looks a bit like a large tabby cat. For some reason the thought is highly amusing, and Harley lets out a quiet chuckle.

"She's with Happy at the moment, at her ballet lesson on the floor for specialised sports Boss adapted after the 'Civil War'," FRIDAY says, displeasure in her tone clear. It's a sharp contrast to the fondness of mentioning Morgan and shows the depth of FRIDAY's programming. Peter smiles as if thinking the same thing, a loose, relaxed grin that makes Harley feel both floaty and very, very grounded.

"And which floor is that again please, FRIDAY? I seem to have forgotten everything but Ha- my own name today."

"It's the one below Colonel Rhodes' current placement, actually. Floor 213." Peter hums. At the pleasant feel of it, Harley slowly drops his head back into Peter's chest. This kind of embrace has always been rare between them, and a reluctant part of him knew he should make the most of it.

"How long had Tony been awake before he collapsed?"

"My apologies, but that information is above the clearance of those in this room," she said. If he didn't know better, he'd say she was wincing. But, in a way, he did know better, and so knew she only meant him. There's probably nothing under Tony's control that Peter didn't have access to at this point. Tony seemed to enjoy cracking the world open for Peter to explore, even seemed to relish it. Maybe he was fulfilling some deep desire to be a better father than his dead-beat dad.  
Peter proved Tony right in trusting him. (He always did.)

"Initiate the Fallen Over And Can't Get Up protocol, clearance code Spiderbaby-four-three-seven-five."

"As you wish, Peter." She sounded pleased, proud even. Harley wasn't jealous.

"FRIDAY, how long had Boss been awake at the point of him passing out in his lab?"

"Do you want me to include his definition of 'power naps' in your parameters of asleep?"

"No," he said through gritted teeth. Harley let out a quiet maybe-slightly-lovesick sigh. He couldn't help it. This was Peter at his best, in all honesty. Righteous and kind-hearted and powerful in a way that would make kings of old seethe with jealousy.

"Of course, Peter." She seemed as quietly delighted as Harley was. For a second, he allowed himself to share the feeling with the AI in solidarity.  
"He had been awake for approximately 35 hours. However, he's currently been asleep for 3 hours in a position I assume must be uncomfortable. Might I recommend moving him to the cot in his lab?"

Peter sighed, but his mouth relaxed into a smile. Grim though it was, it was laced with a slight satisfaction. No matter how much he denied it, Peter felt always felt happiest when he was caring for people. He was just one of those sickeningly sweet people. "Thank you, FRIDAY. I'll follow your advice and move his dumbass to his room."  
Harley nodded along. Part of him knew he should be up and protesting, filling his role as the sarcastic joker who called Tony 'old man' and treated Peter like he was just an annoying friend he didn't truly want to get rid of. But he was also tired, and warm, and he was being held gently by someone he loves.

It was a bit of a sad thought, but he didn't think he'd ever felt so safe.

Plus, he didn't have the strength right now to be spiteful, nor could he drag himself up and _lie_. Even if that man who lies and jokes and lives loudly is Harley some days, it's not him right now.

So he just tightens his grip around Peter's waist and nuzzles his head back into his chest. Undoubtedly, he will later blame the last foggy layers of sleep tricking him and lulling him into a false sense of security- but Tony will only raise a brow in that way that he does. (It will tell Harley that Stark knows, and it will terrify him.)

"Harley?"

Sleep is already tugging him down, fast, faster, and though the voice is kind and warm, he'd much rather drift away. Harley hums a response, pressing his lips into the softness below him in an effort to shush the voice. There's a strangled gasp that devolves into a cough, and Harley blearily blinks his eyes open. It takes him a second to process, but then he does.

He's in purgatory, isn't he?

Peter's eyes are wide and endlessly brown, painted with the same shock that's got his mouth open and cheeks flushed pink. He looks for all the world like a cherub-faced angel. Well, he would, but his eyes are slowly narrowing, becoming shadowed. He remembers thinking of them as dark with pain and suffering, but there is a different shade of nighttime in his eyes now. They're overhung with desire and wishfulness, glimmering in the light, and Harley thinks, _maybe this is the right time to make a promise and make a vow,_ and _maybe I'm going to find out what flavour of triumph makes this impossible man,_ but then Peter grins, quick and sharp and the best, prettiest thing he's ever fucking seen, and Harley thinks _there is no Lord that could save me now, and no hell that could make him regret this last damnation, nor keep me from returning to his hellish smile._

Fire has lit in his cheeks, spreading to his chest and lighting there too, until he feels like he's burning up from the inside out. Harley scrambles up, hands and feet flying everywhere in his effort to get away. "Shit, I'm so sorry-"

"No, it's my fault-"

"I was just so comfortable I didn't-"

"It's fine," Peter says, raising his hands placatingly. "Harley," His eyes are wide, soothing, and his palms are upturned, an offer or a promise of something holy, something precious. It silences him, his breath stolen by the pleading hope shining in Peter's eyes. His breath is still coming fast and there's tension underlying his every move, but his gaze is latched onto Peter's eyes. As it always has been, in a way.

Harley sometimes feels as if he has spent his entire lifetime looking for Peter, and that if he does not love him while he can, he will spend the rest of it always looking back, searching for his lost lover's eyes.

"It's okay," Peter says, a smile on his lips, almost like he doesn't know it's there. An unconscious, reckless movement that fractures Harley's heart even more. "I enjoyed it." Harley's brain grinds to a stop. Somehow he had never considered the possibility of Peter liking him back.

"You-you did?"

Peter laughs, the sound soft and light. "Yeah, Harley. It was nice."

And that shouldn't be a big deal. It shouldn't. But it's _Peter_. It's Peter and he's smiling and joking and looking like sin itself and for a split second Harley thinks, _'This is it. This is what I want my future to be. This is how we fall in love.'_ The words are on the tip of his tongue, about to spill over his lips as Harley takes a slow step closer to Peter, fingers reaching up for his still outstretched hand.

"My apologies for interrupting Peter, but Boss' back problems will worsen if he is not moved soon," FRIDAY says.

Just like that, the moment shatters and his perfect future slips from of his hands as quick as sand.

In that second between his lost hope and returning to reality, Harley curses. He curses FRIDAY and Tony for interrupting them, and May for raising Peter to be so beautiful, so brilliantly kind. He curses his mother for letting him move to New York, and his sister (as well as the whole of Rose Hill) for making him want to. He curses Peter for existing, and for allowing Harley to exist with him, but most of all he curses himself, for being foolish enough to think that there was any chance of happiness for him. 

He's an even-tempered man, and a reasonable one, though, so after the second passes he resigns himself to his pain and shoves it deep inside and far away. A fool he may be, but an idiot he is not. He does not give people second chances when it comes to such things as hope, not even himself.

Peter glances away from Harley, gaze darting to the ceiling before it falls once again on him. There's something dejected about his smile now, but it's so close to apologetic that Harley writes it off. Peter isn't into guys. It's fine. No big deal.

"Sure thing, FRIDAY," Peter says, already beginning to walk backwards towards the door. It's no big deal, but it pierces through Harley with the force of a shotgun and suddenly Harley is fighting down the urge to throw up. "Sorry, guess we'll talk later, yeah?" Harley smiles tightly. It must be enough for Peter because the flush dusting his cheeks dies slightly and relief floods through his posture.

Harley bites the inside of his cheek. It's fine; it's no big deal. It's not Peter's choice. He watches as Peter turns and leaves, pretending that the bitter taste in his mouth is from blood and not the empty sting of rejection.

It's no big deal. He's fine. "Mr Keener, do you need assistance?"

Harley wips his eyes roughly with the back of his hand. He hasn't cried at all since he left Rose Hill, and hasn't cried in front of someone since his dad left. He has no intention of starting now. (Even if it's far too late.) "No. I'm fine, thank you."

"Are you certain? I can contact Peter to ask him to come back; he hasn't reached the basement yet so I'm sure he won't min-"

"FRIDAY," Harley says, voice hard. She stops talking abruptly _. (He may not be Peter, but FRIDAY was still instructed to take care of him. She has to _at least_ take his wishes into account. It's not like how Peter can ask for anything and she will provide, but it's enough. But, god, it hurt sometimes when he glimpsed Peter's name above his own.)_

"I'm fine, if I need further assistance from Mr Parker I will talk to him myself." _Liar_. "Please leave me be." FRIDAY hesitates, but she doesn't question. Maybe if he was Peter she would have. Maybe she wouldn't have taken that as an answer, might've even alerted Tony and demanded he check on him. But he isn't that high on her priority list, so she just says, "Of course, Mr Keener. If you need anything, just ask."

There's a beep to signal FRIDAY's departure, a completely human thing to tell someone that their full attention has been diverted even though FRIDAY is always present in some form. It's stupid, because he really doesn't care at all, and because FRIDAY's still there, but he suddenly feels very alone.

He knows that beep, and what follows.

Harley walks back to his room in silence.


End file.
